The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child anchors children's right to participate in decision-making. This right refers to decisions at the individual level as well as collective decisions taken by a group of children. Various studies have indicated that youth from disadvantaged backgrounds face high barriers to participation in…

This qualitative study explores school principals' perceptions and enactments of shared sense-making processes during a generally-outlined pedagogical reform, i.e. "a broad-policy reform allowing educators to exercise their discretion in meeting its pedagogical goals," aiming to inquire what makes such processes critical to schools'…

Purpose: Perceptual inhibitors to instructional leadership are based on disagreements with the premises of instructional leadership. This study explored how the paradoxical approach, which advocates "both/and" approach to conflicting demands, may moderate the influence of the perceptual inhibitors of instructional leadership.…

The recognition of the environmental crisis has created the need for environmental education (EE) development and leadership. Schools have a crucial role in promoting EE, which requires a deep organizational change to be led by school principals. Consequently, it is important to investigate principals' leadership perceptions in the context of the…

This article investigates the phenomenology of "Social Education Coordinators" in Israeli high schools regarding school's civic education. Twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted, followed by a two-stage coding process. The Social Education Coordinators indicate that their schools seem to be unified behind the goal of…

School principals' decisions are made within the complex organizations called schools. This study explored how systems thinking is reflected in principals' perceptions about their decision-making processes. Based on a qualitative analysis of interviews and focus groups, principals' descriptions of their own effective decision-making reflected…

Effective implementation of educational reforms requires collaboration between stakeholders. The current paper describes and analyzes the findings of a qualitative research, which examined the perceptions of the three hierarchic levels of stakeholders, assigned by the Israeli Ministry of Education in 2010 to introduce and implement a new policy…

Purpose: In Israel, the decision which educational framework is most suitable for pupils with special needs is made by a placement committee. In January 2005, the eighth amendment of the Israeli Special Education Law determined that all pupils have the legal right to participate in their placement committee's deliberations. This paper aims to…

As part of a larger mixed-method study on teacher evaluation, this paper explores how cultural and socio-political contexts of the Israeli Arab public schools inform principals' high-stakes evaluation processes for attaining tenure. Concepts from micropolitical theory were used to analyse data from in-depth semi-structured interviews with twenty…

Purpose: Turning an education reform program into school reality greatly depends on the principal. In certain cases, principals choose to implement reform instructions only partially. The purpose of this paper is to explore school principals' considerations leading to their decisions not to fulfill a national reform's guidelines in a full and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the motives, opportunities, and threats associated with the adoption of market-driven externally developed reforms (EDRs) as well as how these motivator factors, combined with background variables, account for school principals' satisfaction with EDR adoption. Design/methodology/approach: Principals…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate ethical leadership in the context of the Arab educational system in Israel. It questions the relations of ethical leadership dimensions with decision making as well as background characteristics of the educational leaders. Design/methodology/approach: Arab educational leaders (n=150) from…

Purpose: As a result of continuous reforms, increased emphasis has been placed on participative leadership as a means to improving school and teacher outcomes. However, along with the benefits of participative leadership comes the potential for strain and burnout, which stem from work intensification. Applying the implicit leadership theory and…

This paper discusses the decision of Muslim female principals in Israel to don the hijab following their appointment to school principalship. This research employed narrative life-story interviews to understand the women's decision to alter their appearance and how this transition is connected to their role as female school principals in the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to probe the extent to which principals, as boundary spanners, manage with the influence of the local educational authority (LEA) and the superintendent over school matters. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study is based on sequential quantitative?qualitative explanatory mixed research design. It is based on…